1 Complaint Forwarded to the SEC Thu 7/12/2006 12:42 AM OIEA [OIEA@sec.gov] Complaint Forwarded to the SEC
HO-1191914 Dear sir, A notification was forwarded to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission regarding the solicitation you received from Morrison & Kohler Associates (http://www.morrisonkohler.com/) to assist you in recovering your investment in your unspecified non-performing shares (what are they?), as part of a purported U.S. Federal Court ordered settlement with the class action group of investors who purchased shares through Trans-National Securities & Trust, S.A. No such entity as Morrison & Kohler Associates is registered with the SEC. Despite the alleged New York City address for Morrison & Kohler Associates, it is unlikely this entity is located in the USA. Given modern telecommunications technology, telephone call forwarding to offshore listings poses no obstacle to fraudsters. In this connection, please see our online publication, "Fake Seals and Phony Numbers: How Fraudsters Try to Look Legit" [http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/fakeseals.htm]. I also checked with the New York State Secretary of State: this legitimate state body had no information or any incorporation records for any law firm called Morrison & Kohler Associates. In addition, the Securities Class Action Clearinghouse run by Stanford University (http://securities.stanford.edu/index.html) had no record of any such class action suit re: Trans-National Securities & Trust, S.A. Accordingly, you may wish to report this matter to the New York State Bar Association (http://www.nysba.org/), in the event that that body may choose to alert the public to what appears to be the practice of law by a firm and individuals who are not licensed or authorized to practice in New York. For your information, solicitations to assist investors in recovering their investment as the result of their having fallen victim in a previous fraud are themselves often a mere continuation of the same fraud by the same or related fraudsters and are commonplace. What the solicitation you received may be leading up to is a classic type of reload scam/fraud, against which we especially warn investors to be on guard (see our online publication, "Worthless Stock: How to Avoid Doubling Your Losses" [http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/worthless.htm]). The types of transactions described in the documents received by you are not part of normal practices in the process of settling class action claims. Rather, they are most likely variations upon an advance fee fraud (see: http://www.sec.gov/answers/foreignalert.htm). As always, check with securities regulators about any investment offering made to you to see if it is legitimate. It may very well be that the same or connected fraudsters have exchanged your name and investment information and in fact are attempting to make a new run at you. It is possible that the new entity soliciting you (Morrison & Kohler Associates) somehow is also connected to, or a successor entity to, your original brokers for your previous purchases (Trans-National Securities & Trust, S.A.?). As you may know, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) has put out a consumer alert advising consumers not to conduct business with certain "overseas share salespeople." This list is available from its website at http://www.fido.asic.gov.au/fido/fido.nsf/byheadline/list+of+unlicensed+overseas+cold+callers?opendocumen t. (Similarly, the New Zealand Securities Commission [http://www.sec-com.govt.nz/invest/overseasbrokers1.shtml].) In addition, you may want to read the ASIC's news alert entitled, "Cold calling and phone scams and how to avoid them," which is available online at: http://www.fido.asic.gov.au/fido/fido.nsf/byheadline/Cold+calling?openDocument. Lastly, you may want to review our Foreign Investor Alert, which is available on the SEC's website at: http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/fleecing.htm. Investors in a situation similar to yours should avoid purchasing anything over the telephone from unknown entities. Please bear in mind that once fraudsters have gotten hold of your contact and account/investment information, they will make repeated attacks upon you, in different guise to be sure, but with the hope of relieving you of additional funds should you prove unwary even for an instant. Again, perhaps the best
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offense is a good defense: 1) investors should AVOID PURCHASING ANYTHING OVER THE TELEPHONE FROM UNKNOWN ENTITIES; 2) as ALWAYS, investors should check with securities regulators about any investment offering made to them to see if it is legitimate. For your information, I have referred your complaint to the people in the SEC who specialize in the issues you've raised for their review. If they have any questions or wish to respond directly to you, they will contact you. I hope this information proves helpful to you. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. You did the right thing to check. Indeed, please feel free to check directly with me at any time via the contact info. provided. Sincerely, Jim Daly U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission Office of Investor Education and Assistance 100 F Street, NE Washington, DC 20549-0213 (202) 551-6340, (202) 772-9295 (fax) oiea@sec.gov ________________________________________ Sent: Monday, December 04, 2006 7:12 AM To: OIEA Subject: The bogus law firm Morrison & Kohler Associates Dear sir, The bogus law firm Morrison & Kohler Associates is making false and presumably fraudulent offers to the victims of the former boiler room Trans-National Securities & Trust - see attached letter. This law firm does not exist in the phone or law directories which we have searched e.g. http://www.hierosgamos.org/hg/db_lawfirms.asp?action=search http://legalrecords.findlaw.com/ss/search_result.jsp Its claimed New York address of 410 Park Avenue, 18th Floor is likely not to be genuine. It appears to be a fraud operation using US phone & fax services.
Yours sincerely,
2 attachments http://www.morrisonkohler.com/index.htm Thank you for your interest in Morrison & Kohler Associates. For more information about us, please refer to details below: Address: 410 Park Avenue, 18th Floor New York, NY 10022 Telephone: +1 718 764 5921 Fax: +1 718 764 5988 E-mail: info@morrisonkohler.com.
3 http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/fakeseals.htm
Fake Seals and Phony Numbers: How Fraudsters Try to Look Legit
It's a hard, cold fact: fraudsters lie. That's how they attempt to make money. They lie when they promise you "guaranteed" high returns with little or no risk. And they lie when they forget to mention that the company or product they're touting doesn't exist. Some fraudsters tell straightforward lies, fabricating facts or making bogus claims. That's why we encourage investors to do their own independent research and to remember that wonderful, timeless adage: "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is." Other fraudsters salt their stories with grains of truth to give their schemes an air of legitimacy. For many years, the SEC and securities regulators around the globe have been encouraging investors to investigate before they invest — to ask tough questions about their investments and the people who sell them. Taking their cue from us, some fraudsters now pretend to do the same. One ruse fraudsters use involves assurances that an investment has been registered with the appropriate agency. The fraudsters will purport to give you the agency's telephone number and invite you to verify for yourself the "authenticity" of their claims. But even if the agency does exist, the contact information almost certainly will be false. Instead of speaking with an actual government official, you'll reach the fraudsters or their colleagues — who will give the company, the promoter, or the transaction high marks. Another trick involves the misuse of a regulator's seal. The fraudsters copy the official seal or logo from the regulator's website — or create a bogus seal for a fictitious entity — and then use that seal on documents or web pages to make the deal look legitimate. You should be aware that the SEC — like other state and federal regulators in the U.S. and around the world — does not allow private entities to use its seal. Moreover, the SEC does not "approve" or "endorse" any particular securities, issuers, products, services, professional credentials, firms, or individuals. Here's how you can protect yourself against these and other deceptive tactics:
Deal Only With Real Regulators — It's not hard to figure out who the real regulators are and how you can contact them. You'll find a list of international securities regulators on the website of the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) and a directory of state and provincial regulators in Canada, Mexico, and the U.S. on the website of the North American Securities Administrators Association (NASAA). If someone encourages you to verify information about a deal with an entity that doesn't appear on these lists — such as the "Federal Regulatory & Compliance Department," the "Securities and Registration Compliance" agency, or the "U.S. Securities Registration Bureau" — you're probably dealing with fraudsters. You'll find legitimate contact information for the SEC in the Contact Us section of our website and on SEC Division Homepages. If you're ever unsure whether you're dealing with someone from the real SEC, use our online Question Form to ask us. Be Skeptical of Government "Approval" — The SEC does not evaluate the merits of any securities offering, nor do we determine whether a particular security is a "good" investment. Instead, the SEC's staff reviews registration statements for securities offerings and declares those statements "effective" if the companies appear to have satisfied our disclosure rules. In general, all securities offered in the U.S. must be registered with the SEC or must qualify for an exemption from the registration requirements. You can check to see whether a company has registered its securities with the SEC and download its disclosure documents using our EDGAR database of company filings. Look Past Fancy Seals and Impressive Letterheads — Most people who use computers know how easy it can be to copy and paste images. As a result, today's technology allows fraudsters to create impressive, legitimate-looking websites and stationery at little to no cost. Don't be taken in by a glossy brochure, a glitzy website, or the presence of a regulator's official seal on a web page or document.
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Again, the SEC does not authorize private companies to use our seal — even as a legitimate link to our website. If you see the SEC seal on a company's website or materials, think twice. Check Out the Broker and the Firm — Always verify whether any broker offering to buy or sell securities is properly licensed to do business in your state, province, or country. If the person claims to work with a U.S. brokerage firm, call NASD's Public Disclosure Program hotline at (800) 289-9999 or visit NASD's website to check out the background of both the individual broker and the firm. Be sure to confirm whether the firm actually exists and is current in its registration, and ask whether the broker or the firm has a history of complaints. You can often get even more information from your state securities regulator. Be Wary of "Advance Fee" or "Recovery Room" Schemes — An increasing number of investmentrelated frauds target investors worldwide who purchase "microcap" stocks, the low-priced and thinly traded stocks issued by the smallest of U.S. companies. If the stock price falls or the company goes out of business, the fraudsters swoop in, falsely claiming that they can help investors recover their losses — for a substantial fee disguised as some type of tax, deposit, or refundable insurance bond. As soon as an unwary investor pays the "advance fees," the fraudsters disappear — leaving the investor with even higher losses. For more information about these types of frauds, please read our publication entitled The Fleecing of Foreign Investors.
If you want to invest wisely and steer clear of frauds, you must get the facts. Never, ever, make an investment based solely on a promoter's promises or what you see on the Internet — especially if the investment involves a small, thinly-traded company that isn't well known. And don't even think about investing on your own in small companies that don't file regular reports with the SEC, unless you are willing to investigate each company thoroughly and to check the truth of every statement about the company. For more information on investing wisely, visit the Investor Information section of our website.
http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/fakeseals.htm